The Hardest Choice
by The Maze Writer
Summary: The hardest choice to make may just be the best one. Sometimes we make choices in life. Other times, choices make you. *Warning tearjerker* Based on the movie, "if I stay." (I haven't read the book yet.)
1. if i stay

The car crash. It took my soul, my will, my heart, and nearly my life. My parents had been killed in a car crash, and now we were too. Now I have to choose, do I live or do I die.

_We were heading down the highway on the way to who knows where, when a truck hit us and we skidded off the road, flipping the car in the process. _

_I woke up on the grass nearby. I picked myself up, and ran around the scene of our accident trying to find someone to talk to me. When nobody would, I climbed into an ambulance._

_…_

_My body was lying on a hospital bed. I wasn't in my body. When I tried to touch someone I went right through them. I ran through the hospital until I got to the waiting room and saw Johnny, Two-bit, Dallas, and Steve. A doctor was talking to them._

_"__Those kids are already orphans, but now they have lost their guardian too."_

_Darry? Dead? No,no,no,no,no._

_"__He died on the scene of the accident, Soda's in surgery, and Pony is in a coma."_

_Soda._

_I turned around, running through people on my way to the OR._

_A nurse opened the door on her way out, and I ducked inside. There was Soda, on the Operating table, still, but alive. The doctors bustled around me, finishing the surgery. I turned around and started to leave when I heard a whine come from the machine. It was loud and persistent, and when I turned around I saw it was the heart machine, and it had flat-lined. I screamed, the pain of loss ripping through me, and suddenly I wasn't in the OR anymore, I was in the hallway and there was a bright light coming from the other end, and I was screaming that I didn't want to do this anymore. I had the choice, and I didn't want it._

_…_

_"__The kids waking up alone, if he wakes up." The doctor told the gang._

_Steve let out a muffled scream and fell to his knees. Dally had to run to the bathroom to be sick, and Johnny and Two-bit burst into tears._

_…_

_"__Pony," Johnny's soft voice carried over the bed holding my body, and onto the floor where I sat. I stood up, making my way to the chair across from Johnny's. _

_"__You have a family. I'm your family, Two-bit is your family, heck, even Steve is your family. I want you to fight with everything you have, but if that's too hard for you, with everybody gone, I want you to know that it's Ok to leave." _

_He started crying, his head dropping onto the pillow next to my head._

_"__Thank you," I whispered. _

_I walked toward the exit door, ready to leave, ready to see my brothers again, ready to see my parents, ready to leave this unbearable pain that is ripping me open and causing tears to fall down my face._

_I was just opening it, when I heard footsteps. I turned around. Two-bit, Steve, Johnny, and Dally, were taking a walk down the hallway._

_They were all crying silently, leaning on each other for support._

_My parents, my brothers, and I dying would be enough to rip them apart. They would never be the same. _

_I gasped as their futures passed before my eyes._

_Johnny would end up committing suicide, Dally would become a full on hood, Two-bit would become an alcoholic, and Steve wou__ld go crazy._

_I couldn't do that to them. But if I stay, then I will have to deal with the pain of loss, and I'm not sure I could live with that._

_I saw my life flash in front of my eyes. My whole family playing a card game on the living room floor. Meeting Johnny for the first time. Playing football with the gang. Sleeping with Soda, and wrestling with Darry. _

_I knew what I had to do._

I opened my eyes. Johnny stood over me.

"Pony?"


	2. I stayed

**A/N: I love you guys. I was certain this was going to be a one-shot, but with so many request for it to be longer, I decided to do it. I did it for you guys. You gave me the energy, will, and heart to write this chapter. Enjoy it. **

Johnny. Oh, man I missed you. I would tell you that, but this tube is sticking in my throat.

Johnny turned off the machine forcing air down my throat. I sucked in my first breath without help from the machine. The air going down the tube told me I had done it. I had made my choice. I was alive.

A tear slid down my cheek, but I was immobile.

The beeping sound in the corner was getting stronger and steadier by the second.

Johnny started crying then, sobbing harder than I'd ever seen a person do before.

"Pony, oh, Pony, oh god," he choked.

There was a tube in my nose pushing oxygen down, but the throat one had stopped. There were a couple of IV's sticking in me, and a heart monitor. I had a neck brace on. I couldn't see my body, so I didn't see any injuries. I couldn't move though, but honestly, I didn't care.

There didn't seem to be a lot of pain, the nurses must have drugged me up.

He ran out the room, then came back two seconds later with three boys. Steve took one look at me, ran over to the bed and hugged me gently. He was crying silently, the tears soaking my hospital gown.

"I missed you so much pony, we'll get through this together, don't worry."

Dally collapsed into a chair and buried his face in his hands, sobbing.

Two-bit was speechless. When a tear touched the corner of his mouth he smiled sadly, then walked over and took my hand.

The guys were here for me. They were the only ones left. I felt the hole then, a huge, gaping hole in the middle of my heart where I would never be the same. A couple more tears slid down my face as my heart started to break.

Johnny was stroking my hair like Soda used too. A weird, gurgling sound came out my throat tube, and I realized I was sobbing. I closed my eyes, the tears slipping down my cheeks as I waited for unconsciousness to whisk me away to a place where it didn't hurt so much.

…

When I woke up again a nurse was going through my vitals. When she saw I was awake, she smiled.

"You're doing well Mr. Curtis, I knew you were a fighter."

I smiled as much as I could with the tube still in.

"You had some surgery to correct some internal bleeding, but you're healing nicely," she said. I was surprised, I hadn't know that.

"You have a few broken ribs, road rash, gashes, bruises, a concussion, and a black eye. But you're young and healthy, so you should heal completely."

I grimaced inside my head, I was going to be here for a looonnnng time.

"I'm going to takeout you're throat tube now, you don't need it anymore."

She leaned over me, grasped the tube and gently removed it. As soon as it was gone I started coughing, the tube had scratched my throat.

When I got my breath back the nurse smiled at me again.

"Better?"

I nodded.

"Why can't I move?" I asked, my voice scratchy.

"It's the drugs we were using. We are weaning you off them now."

I was glad. Not moving is very uncomfortable.

"The neck brace is a precaution. That will be off soon too."

Then she left, and I was alone again.

…

The gang entered the room.

"Hey Pony," said Johnny softly.

I didn't want to talk. I was exhausted, and I wanted to cry in private. I smashed my face into a pillow, hoping they'd get the message.

Dally spoke.

"Damn it Ponyboy! They were like brothers to us! And now they're gone and it hurts like hell."

Dally was really upset. I peeked out from behind the pillow and them all leaning on each other again. But remembering the last time they were leaning on each other like that reminded me of the choice I had made, losing everybody in my family in the space of a few months, and being completely alone. I couldn't help it. I started crying again, and my heart, which was beginning to heal, ripped open again, and the feeling of loss was even more painful than before.

"Oh Ponyboy," I heard Steve cry, then they all came in for a hug.

My world was crashing down around me, and the gang were the only ones to keep me standing.

…

"Ponyboy," someone was calling me.

I opened my eyes. Two-bit was standing over me.

"Guess what? I'm taking custody off you!"

I was elated. No social worker would be taking me away.

"That's great!" I said, and Two-bit leaned down and gave me a hug.

We were all going to live together in a small house, being there for each other. When I get out of this hell-hole, we are all going to need comfort.

My nightmares had come back, and without Soda's arm I was helpless against them. I was waking up screaming. The nurses kept trying to sedate me, but Steve wouldn't let them. I was too weak to leave the hospital still, but slowly I was healing.

The doctors had announced I had depression, a normal reaction to loss. And I had lost so much. I spent the day staring at the ceiling and thinking of my brothers and my parents. The gang visiting helped, but I was a long way form healing emotionally and physically.

But slowly and surly, my wounds are beginning to scar.


End file.
